The widespread application of noble metal catalysts such as platinum and its alloys for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in fuel cells has been hampered by their high-cost and low thermal efficiency. In spite of tremendous efforts on searching for alternative non-precious metal catalysts, the achievement of a catalyst with high activity, high onset potential, good stability and low cost remains challenging. Here, we develop an efficient strategy to construct three-dimensional (3D) architectures from numerous edge-abundant boron-nitride-carbon nanoribbon (BNC NR) for ORR electrocatalyts. Benefited from boron and nitrogen co-doping, large available edges and multilevel pores, the resulting architectures exhibit excellent electrocatalytic activities for ORR. The optimized sample shows the highest onset and half-wave potentials of among all the reported metal-free ORR catalysts, even superior to commercially available Pt/C catalysts (~130 mV and ~60 mV higher for onset and half-wave potential, respectively). Furthermore, this catalyst possesses a high current density and excellent 4-electron transfer pathway with less than 4.0% hydrogen peroxide yield (4.0-6.0% for Pt/C) during oxygen reduction process.

Edge�abundant boron�nitride�carbon nanoribbons aerogel as efficient electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction

247th National Meeting (2014)

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